Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius had a front-row view of the problems plaguing the website that the government established to allow people to shop for health insurance under Obamacare.

Sebelius and Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney were at an enrollment and education event on Thursday at Heinz Field to promote Healthcare.gov, but people who showed up encountered problems in signing up for coverage on the website. …

“Believe me, we had some early glitches,” said Sebelius, who was introduced by Rooney, a backer of the law. “But it’s getting better every day.”

At the back of the room, it was a different story. About 20 people armed with laptops and certified by the government to sign up people for coverage were meeting with uninsured people, answering questions and fruitlessly trying to access the website.

LaKesha Lowry, 41, came to the event to find out about her health insurance options. But the North Side resident said she was not able to access the site, even with the help of a certified application counselor.

Asked about the ongoing problems with the website and the fact that people at a government enrollment event couldn’t sign up, Sebelius told reporters that she didn’t know what problems were affecting service at Heinz Field. The government has made hardware and software upgrades to improve the site, she said, and it is working for many people.

Define “many.” So far, they’ve managed to sign up as many subscribers for insurance in a little over a week as the average daily traffic of an upper-level independent blog. They’ve managed to handle 13 million hits in nine days, according to Sebelius’ comments in Pittsburgh, which works out to our daily traffic level in October 2012, and we weren’t tossing out a bunch of 404s at the time. Oh, and one other thing — we weren’t imposing a mandate on all Americans to read us or pay a fine through the IRS, so bragging about traffic levels is more than just a little dishonest.

Here’s a pro-tip for Sebelius: Don’t do on-site signup events until the site can handle them, and don’t blame your host for your own website’s incompetent engineering. Even the Steelers aren’t going to cotton to being that much of a doormat.

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Even the Steelers aren’t going to cotton to being that much of a doormat.

The Steelers agreed to promote this crap sandwich, Ed. I’m thinking your favorite is willing to whore themselves out for anything. If I were you I would leave my money on the nightstand and find a better class whore somewhere else.

Here’s a pro-tip for Sebelius: Don’t do on-site signup events until the site can handle them, and don’t blame your host for your own website’s incompetent engineering. Even the Steelers aren’t going to cotton to being that much of a doormat.

“Little” Doocey on Fox News tried to get into the website all day yesterday with no success. The call center suggested trying again during off-peak hours (after midnight). I don’t think Heinz field had anything to do with it.

Here’s a pro-tip for Sebelius: Don’t do on-site signup events until the site can handle them, and don’t blame your host for your own website’s incompetent engineering. Even the Steelers aren’t going to cotton to being that much of a doormat.

“Little” Doocey on Fox News tried to get into the website all day yesterday with no success. The call center suggested trying again during off-peak hours (after midnight). I don’t think Heinz field had anything to do with it.

The lsm is actually blaming the gop for them not reporting on obamacare

What cajones

cmsinaz on October 11, 2013 at 8:59 AM

Maybe they aren’t as smart as we think. In their sheer hatred for anything not communist or marxist they are reporting on why they are not reporting on something. Isn’t that essentially reporting on it? True it may not be in depth, but normally they would just gloss over it anyway and try to spin it.

Maybe they could try this: Run the website Monday thru Friday only, and divide the alphabet into five days, and you can only try to log in on your day of the week.

Has anyone tried to make an account during the middle of the night when people are only up playing video games? I am suspicious that they don’t want the costs to be publicized before this years November elections, where states like Virginia have an important Governor choice which is between Pro obamacare McCauliffe and Con Obamacare Cuccinelli. I really think real prices might sink McCaulliffe’s campaign. Look for the Exchange for Virginia to be fixed the second week of November.

Why didn’t Sebelius team up with the whores at Seaseme Street, they could of had the Count spouting off each and every time the lucky bastards got through all of the self destroying website steps and were actually able to purchase a policy. I can just see it now;

Lucky Bastard #-1) Wow, after trying for 9 days and wasting almost 100 hours of my life stuck in cyberhell I was never so happy after being raked over the coals to buy an overpriced policy that gives me less coverage and higher deductibles. Yeah for me, I did it.

One simple fix that these idiots don’t have the sense to figure out: Don’t require setting up an account until after the suckers have browsed, chosen a plan, and then clicked to checkout. I’m sure it would still be fvcked up, but maybe not quite as bad.

Still, this needs to be put in historical perspective. Germany first tried using container trucks with their exhaust piped into the back, it wasn’t until later that their system was “perfected”.

And the Khmer Rouge, well let me tell you, their labor camps didn’t even have decent watchtowers at the beginning, just shacks at ground level; the towers only came later after much study and focus-grouping.

One simple fix that these idiots don’t have the sense to figure out: Don’t require setting up an account until after the suckers have browsed, chosen a plan, and then clicked to checkout. I’m sure it would still be fvcked up, but maybe not quite as bad.

100 people. Wow, sure they had enough refreshments? And they couldn’t even get the site working to allow them to sign up? Gee Dan, I hope that was worth ruining the Steelers brand over.

He made damn certain I never spend a dime on the team again. No tickets, no gear, nothing. The money I’ll have to pay to cover the increase in health costs is what I don’t have to spend on tickets and merchandise.

Ha, ha, ha, ha!! I’m a Seahawks fan and WE HATE THE F’ING STEELERS! We’re loving their season, and this couldn’t have happened at a better place. The Steelers’ owners are whores, just as a previous poster said, and it serves them right to see them fail big time with this miserable administration.

Here’s a pro-tip for Sebelius: Don’t do on-site signup events until the site can handle them, and don’t blame your host for your own website’s incompetent engineering. Even the Steelers aren’t going to cotton to being that much of a doormat.

Do I look Norwegian? Do I get to award prizes for the one-man opinion? Do I even discourage others from rewarding what they see to be awesome comments (unless they’re from me, in which case I do discourage that)?

I have been reading local and national articles from all over the web and I’m starting to get the sense that most of the people being targeted for recruitment and the successful sign ups are actually mostly additional Medicaid recipients! People who didn’t have before or paid something are now getting for free. I guess that’s why they don’t really care how bad it’s going…because getting millions more sign up for free care isn’t a basis for a system you actually want to be successful…more people addicted to and demanding the spigot stay open on their entitlements and crash the whole system.

In another indication of how bad things went yesterday, Pittsburgh’s largest newspaper (The Post Gazette) has NOTHING on the big event. They couldn’t even bring themselves to report on what a disaster it was. LOL!

as a web person, a “hit” does not a user make. One user entering a website could create 50 hits simply by entering the site. Everything that has to load to make the user see the site correctly is a “hit” – ie pictures, external CSS and JavaScript sheets, etc.

Next I think you may be being too hard on this wonderful website that cost taxpayers a mere $634,000,000. I understand Iowa now has a grand total of 5 accounts created, though Hawaii is still at zero.

In addition Sebilus is busy making up a schedule so that each state, county, and city will have a designated sign up time. Their citizens will then be issued an exact time when they are allowed to enter the site and sign up. Warning, each designated time will allow only 4 minutes, 32 seconds per sign up (which is longer than the doctors on your plan are allowed to spend with you as a patient by 1 minute) so you must have all your information ready to input, including names, addresses, dobs, credit card data, bank account info of everyone in your family down to your third cousin.

If Sebelius as a business VP in charge or as project manager in charge went to a pre-arranged publicity demonstration and it was found that the system, whatever it was, pathetically failed, she’d be called on the carpet before being booted from the company.